Saying Goodbye to Cereal

It's crunchy and sweet -- even when it's not a sugar cereal. It's wet and soft and smooth. It's great for dinner or breakfast.

I love cereal. It used to be the only thing I ate for breakfast: two bowls of Cheerios and I was set all morning. Occasionally I'd mix it up with a bagel or something, but my breakfast staple was cereal. This was, of course, pre-diabetes.

It was an accident that I found out what milk does to my blood sugar. I was pregnant and taking only Lantus at the time. One morning the milk was gone and I drank water with my PB (no J)sandwich (yeah, yuck). I had a pretty blunt "ah-ha" moment when I saw the post prandial.

I had tried to have cereal after I was diagnosed (remember the day Ruth taught me how to test my sugar and I was 204 about an hour after breakfast?) and kept buying cereals that were more like cardboard all the time.

I'm a little wiser now when it comes to knowing what certain foods do to my sugar. Well, all except cereal. I've tried having zero-sugar cereal with no luck; I've tried allowing myself a bowl of cinnamon Life every now and then with no luck; I've tried measuring the cereal and the milk with no luck; I've tried guessing. It never works. I always wind up high even when I think I've "really got it this time."

So, although I really don't want to and there are few foods that I've completely said "no" to (Wetzel's Pretzel's... sniff, sniff) because they absolutely ruin my blood sugar, I am officially saying no more cereal. It just plain doesn't work for me.

Megan HolmesMegan was diagnosed in 2009 with Type I. As an RN, she was familiar with the medical side of her diagnosis; learning to be a good patient on the other hand, was and continues to be the challenge of her day to day life. (Read More)

Michelle KowalskiMichelle Kowalski, a writer, editor and photography hobbiest living in Phoenix, was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in February 2005. In January 2008, as part of her quest to start on an insulin pump, Michelle learned that she actually has type 1 diabetes. (Read More)